18 - But What About My Life, Ramana?

We all want to find ourselves. Why is it so hard? Often people would ask the Sage, Ramana, "What about my life or job or relationship, etc.?" He would say, "Before you look for answers to those questions, find out who you are first."

Transcript

Hello,

This is William Cooper.

Welcome to Awakening Together.

I trust you're doing well today.

There's a famous saint in South India named Ramana.

He passed away in the 1950s.

People would often come to him and they would ask,

Ramana,

What about my life?

Ramana,

What about my job?

What about my relationship?

What about this?

What about that?

And what Ramana inevitably would say to them would be,

First find out who you are before you find out about your life,

Your relationship,

Your job,

Your direction.

Who are you?

Well that makes sense,

Right?

I think so.

It reminds me when I was in my early 20s.

And long story,

But I got involved in a very conservative church.

It was a bit cultish,

Actually.

And I remember one day one of them,

One of the church members said to me,

I bet you don't even know who you are.

And that threw me.

I thought,

Well,

Who am I?

So I started looking.

Who am I?

Who am I?

I looked inside.

Who am I?

And you know what?

I couldn't find anything.

And it freaked me out.

And I thought,

Oh,

I need to make a self-concept or,

You know,

I guess I can focus and really be somebody,

Make a better self-concept.

Actually I had a self-concept.

I had a personality.

But when I went inside,

I couldn't find it.

Well,

Fast forward and decades later,

I'm studying awakening.

And they're asking a lot.

Who are you?

Who are you?

Who are you?

And I spent so much time both letting go of who I'm not,

Neti neti,

Like we talked about in a previous podcast,

Neither this nor that,

And connecting to who I am.

But you know what?

It freaked me out again because I could not find who I was.

I couldn't find it.

Nothing was there.

And I looked and I looked for years and years and years.

I looked.

Nothing there.

What have you found when you look?

You know,

In meditation,

I've talked about you watch from awareness everything that happens in front of you,

Your thoughts,

Your emotions,

And whatever you can see,

Whatever you're aware of,

You're not that.

Okay,

So you're not that.

But the part of you that's watching,

That remains no matter what.

That's who you are.

But what is there?

Have you put your attention there?

What is that?

Well let's talk about some Hindu way of looking at the world.

They divide things into two parts.

There's Shiva,

Which is beyond existence.

Shiva is beyond and before everything was created,

All existence.

And all existence is Shakti.

Shiva's the male principle,

Shakti the female principle.

Shakti is an explosion of creation and colors and light and relationships and happiness and joy.

Anything that exists is Shakti.

Where it all comes from is Shiva,

Beyond existence.

Well,

As I found out later through my own discovery,

And nobody ever told me this,

I just blundered in on it.

We're everything,

All at the same time.

We're Shiva,

That which is beyond creation.

And if you follow that part of you that's aware in meditation,

If you follow it back to its source,

You won't find anything there.

Because it's beyond creation.

It's beyond what your thoughts and emotions can experience.

You can't grasp it.

The five senses cannot grasp what is beyond creation,

What is beyond existence,

Because think about it,

It doesn't exist.

It's beyond existence.

How can you know it?

Through your intuition only.

But you can know it.

You don't start there maybe because it takes a while to develop intuition.

It's something we're not so much encouraged in our culture to know about or use.

So you know,

We're not very good at it.

But rather than looking for yourself forever and not finding you because you don't exist,

Just know that you don't exist on that level.

You don't exist.

However,

Remember I said that we're like a rainbow.

We are both beyond existence.

And then as we come into existence,

There's an explosion.

Boom!

And that explosion is light.

Well that does exist.

You can see and feel yourself as light.

And that light also becomes sound as it slows down.

The sound of Aum and a high-pitched sound.

You can hear that.

Maybe you'll hear other sounds too.

And as that slows down,

It congeals into love and bliss and joy.

And that congeals down into atoms and then into molecules and into all objects and dogs,

Cats and all living beings.

It's all one thing.

You know when you relax real deeply and you become one with everything,

It's really true.

You're one with everything.

When Jesus said,

The Father and I are one,

That meant Jesus,

No more Jesus.

It's just only the universe and beyond.

But you're all of it.

Yogananda once said,

It's not quite right to say that I've become God.

Better to say God has become me.

You disappear.

All of the artificial structures disappear.

That's who you are.

It's very important to be in touch with yourself,

Just like Ramana said,

Before we get all caught up in all the stuff that distracts our life,

Find out who you are first.

So put your attention when you sit and stop and meditate,

Therefore not distracted by worldly events and circumstances.

Put your attention on your awareness.

Notice.

Don't start getting used to yourself.

What are you like?

Get used to that.

Don't expect to find anything on the deepest levels of you,

On the deepest level of that rainbow,

Because you're beyond existence.

I can't use words accurately here.

It's not that you don't exist.

It's sometimes they call it emptiness,

But the most full emptiness you can ever experience.

Because remember,

Everything that's exploded into existence comes from there.

So it's all there,

But we can't talk about it because it doesn't exist.

It's beyond existence.

See,

It's crazy,

Right?

It's hard to talk about.

But nonetheless,

That's you.

So put your attention there when you meditate and get to know yourself a little bit.

Remember when I was at the church and I was trying to form a self-concept because I couldn't find myself on the inside?

Well,

That's mostly what we do.

And we mistake ourselves for that self-concept.

We think we are our personality and we're not.

And it's so distracting.

It's like being caught up in a TV show and you think you're the character that you're watching and you waste your life thinking that you're the wrong person.

It's like that.

So these structures that we build are very strong,

These mental personality structures.

And they actually exist.

And they really can be an impediment to us living a joyful and happy life.

Since this podcast is Relaxing Into Happiness,

Awakening together,

Relaxing into happiness,

Let's look at really how to enjoy our own happiness,

Our being,

Our innate nature.

So in our next podcast,

I'd like to look a little bit more deeply in ways to let go of these impediments.

In this podcast,

We're focusing and putting our attention on who we are,

Just like Ramana suggested.

So you can do a lot of that on your own time,

Right?

Get to know yourself.

And this is a process,

So give yourself time.

But you can do this every day.

Know yourself.

And in the next podcast,

We're going to start to dissolve and let go of distractions and blocks to ourselves,

To our happiness,

To our free-flowing and creating in life as we would wish.

Okay,

I've enjoyed talking with you,

And I look forward to next time.

Take care.

Bye.

Reviews

I've searched beyond for who am I? Relief to know on those deepest levels...which don't exist...that I am not alone in the emptiness. Sadly I find myself still playing the character which impedes my blissful ONEness. Guided by God...I can sometimes hear the OM,see atoms, fractals of light bouncing

im enjoying listening my way through your podcasts in order… 🍁🌙🌞🍁🌙🌞🍁🌙🌞🍁🌙🌞🍁🌙🌞

Oh cool! I love the “nothingness” and Shiva idea.
JoannKellogg was an art therapist who worked very hard on mandala therapy. She developed the great round with 12 stages of circles. In the first circle, we draw “nothing” or “the beginning.” I like to think of it as a black hole- as I love quantum physics too. You so beautifully brought them all together for me - “Ah ha! … I get it! I know what we are doing in that circle. Nothing!”
❤️✨

Thank you 🙏

This resonates very well with me; from a deep understanding, it puts a somewhat different angle on things of life and existence. And non-existence.

Important messages and excellent questions to consider. Sri Ramana has immense awakening power. Thank you for the introduction to his concepts and for sharing more of your spiritual path... ~ Loving your podcast series and webpage writings including the one on Sri Ramana.
~ Looking forward to hearing, reading and experiencing more with every episode!
Thanks again William!!!
~ Jennifer Lea

I am loving all of your talks. so grateful i stumbled upon you.
Namaste 🙏

Very informative, thank you, William! Will listen to more of your podcasts!